Sony has announced a new AI upscaling feature called Quick Spectral Super Resolution (QSSR), and it is coming to base PS5s starting with Marvel’s Wolverine and Ghost of Yotei. The technology was originally built for PS5 Pro as PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution (PSSR), but now Sony is offering a version for the standard console.
The announcement comes from a partnership with AMD called Project Amethyst. Sony describes QSSR as a “new performance tier of AI upscaling,” relying on a streamlined neural network architecture and a hand-tuned implementation that maximizes performance on PS5. The company claims the result brings “notable improvements to both image detail and image stability on PS5.”
What QSSR Actually Does
The announcement leans heavily on visual comparisons rather than actual gameplay footage. The video clips show two things:
- A zoom-in of a background in Wolverine, where buildings far away look crisper and less blurred.
- Close-ups of reeds sticking out of a nearby pond in Ghost of Yotei, which also look sharper in the QSSR version.
Insomniac Games’ head of tech, Mike Fitzgerald, explained the first clip: “QSSR adds more pixel-level clarity and stability to our environments, bringing out extra detail amidst the busy streets of Madripoor, the dense alleyways of Shinjuku, and many other areas across Logan’s epic journey.”
Why the Reeds Matter
The second clip is a small detail. A comparison of pond reeds is not a showcase of the future of gaming, but it is the whole demonstration Sony chose to make.
Lead rendering engineer Jasmin Patry, from Sucker Punch Productions, framed the move as a step toward parity: “We’ve long wished that all PS5 players could experience the incredible image quality that PSSR brings to PS5 Pro, and QSSR is a positive step towards that goal.”
The Video Clips Are the Whole Story
There is no actual gameplay footage showing QSSR in action during a fight or a chase. The clips are brief comparisons of static scenes. That is the entire presentation.
The improvements are described as “notable.” That is a carefully chosen word. Not “dramatic,” not “transformative,” just notable.
What Developers Get
QSSR is being offered to all developers on the platform. The question is whether enough of them will take it up. The feature arrives today on both Wolverine and Ghost of Yotei.
The Hand-Tuned Claim
Sony’s description of a hand-tuned implementation that maximizes performance on PS5 is the technical heart of the announcement. It suggests the company spent time adjusting the neural network architecture specifically for the base PS5’s hardware.
What Players Should Expect
The buildings in Wolverine are a better example of something that might matter more, but even that is a single clip.
Our View
This is a clever marketing move. Sony is taking a technology that previously belonged only to PS5 Pro and making it available to the standard console. The problem is that the demonstration is not very compelling.
Comparing pond reeds and distant buildings is not the way to sell a feature. It is the kind of detail that matters to someone looking closely at a screen.
The technology itself seems genuinely capable. The neural network architecture and the hand-tuned implementation suggest real engineering effort. But the presentation falls short of proving the point.
Sony has shown that QSSR exists and that it can sharpen details. Whether it changes how games look in everyday play is a question the announcement does not answer.
For now, the reeds and the buildings are all there is.
See the video the story is built around at Kotaku.
Get the Notebook.
The day's best stories and every fresh verdict, in plain English, in your inbox by seven. One email a day, no more.